Knight's Move (Kirov Series Book 21)

by John Schettler

  Montgomery would soon get busy recruiting volunteers from the city’s swollen population to dig new defensive positions and trench lines. In this, the Chinese provided stalwart and eager workers. He was already picking out his secondary defensive lines, pouring over the maps day and night. The time he would spend in his temple with all this planning would serve him very well.

  Part III

  Rösselsprung

  “The Knight… Inexperienced players have a fear of this piece, which seems to them enigmatic, mysterious, and astonishing in its power. We must admit that it has remarkable characteristics which compel respect and occasionally surprise even the most wary players.”

  ― Eugene Znosko-Borowski, Chess Master

  Chapter 7

  On the 12th of January, 1942, a “Winston Special” convoy was teed up to rush troops south. Some would reinforce the British Canary Islands, others were bound for the Indian Ocean and eventually the embattled stronghold of Singapore. It was a large convoy, with 27 ships, including the Britannic, and several escorts. It was carrying over 41,000 troops, artillery stores, AFVs, armored cars, and supporting ammunition, a most valuable asset of the Crown, which soon found itself very near the dangerous action fought in the Canary Islands.

  The convoy sailed from Liverpool and the Clyde, forming up off Oversay and starting south. It wasn’t long before an errant German U-boat, U-402, would make the first attack. That boat, under Lieutenant Commander Fieiherr von Forstner, had been part of the last undersea chess game Döenitz would play in 1941, the Wolfpack Letzteritter, or “Last Knight.” The boat lingered north of the Azores, with information that a possible fat convoy was heading its way. Forstner was not disappointed. On the night of January 16th, he was soon stalking and hitting the troopship Llangibby Castle right astern. The hit blew off the rudder, though the propellers remained undamaged. It was enough to send the ship limping into Horta on the Azores, where it disgorged its troops.

  Forstner found the escorts too heavy for his liking, and slipped away, but he had nudged that ship out of the fold, along with the 1157 troops it carried. They were a very special unit led by Colonel John Frost, 2nd Para Battalion, and they had been planning to raid a German Wurzburg Radar site on the coast of France at Bruneval. The raid was planned for February, but the sudden onset of the German Operation Condor had changed all that. Now the men were bound for the Azores, and Llangibby Castle barely got them there after her close shave with U-402. They would soon be pulled into the desperate defense of the Grand Canary Island.

  The rest of the convoy was re-directed away from the battle zone, well out into the Atlantic before turning to run for the protection of the Cape Verde Islands, and then on another 800 nautical miles to Freetown. It would soon be stalked by a most unwelcome guest, for Raeder’s Operation Rösselsprung was now posing a grave threat.

  Considering the value of those 40,000 troops at sea, and knowing the German raiders were out there somewhere, the Admiralty had pressed Tovey to insure the convoy’s safety. He got that news while still in the sick bay aboard Invincible, just one of the many matters that weighed upon him at that moment. The fleet was bound for the Azores, but now he would be forced to detach ships to bolster the thin escort. Duke of York or King George V would have been much better choices, but though they still had enough fuel to participate, they were both toothless tigers after the lengthy engagement off Fuerteventura. King George V did not have a single 14-inch shell remaining in her gun magazines to threaten the enemy.

  Tovey briefly considered sending the two ships anyway, thinking their mere presence might deter an enemy attack. Yet he would need them back in some semblance of fighting trim as soon as possible. The battle for Grand Canaria would soon be the major focus of fleet operations again. After consulting with the Admiralty, Admiral Pound agreed that the longer legged cruisers would have to do the job. Norfolk and Suffolk still had good stocks of both fuel and ammunition, and had come out of the battle with only minor damage, so both were detached.

  These were the same two intrepid ships that had stalked the Bismarck in one telling of these events, but that had never happened. A year earlier, Norfolk had been out after another German raider, the Admiral Scheer, but this mission would be far more hazardous. Where Admiral Scheer had 11-inch guns, Kaiser Wilhelm had the bigger 15-inch guns, the same weapons mounted on Bismarck, though only six barrels. A year ago, the cruisers enjoyed almost a four knot speed advantage over the German raider, but now Kaiser Wilhelm had that edge, a full four knots faster than the British ships. While the cruisers would rely on a few Walrus search planes, and radar sets of relatively short range, the Goeben had twelve aircraft to thwart that effort, not to mention another six 11-inch guns should the British actually make contact.

  Admiral Tovey had been scraping about looking for other assets he could put in the chase. Yet, in the aftermath of the battle off Fuerteventura, he was very troubled. What could Norfolk and Suffolk do if it came to a fight, he wondered? They might get their hits… they might. But I could lose one or both in an engagement like that, and those are ships I desperately need.

  Even now they were out there racing to catch up with the convoy. Tovey knew that was his only safe play. If the Germans were hunting, that was the best prey they could find. So all he had to do was get his ships out to WS-15 and the Germans would find him soon enough—but what ships? There was only one other battleship he could call to the action, the old Royal Sovereign. That ship was at Freetown now, where it was supposed to accompany the convoy down around the cape to Durban. There WS-15 would split, with some elements bound for Bombay, and others for Singapore, where Montgomery had been sent to relieve Percival and make a last desperate stand to try and save the fabled “Rock of the East.”

  Tovey would have no choice now. Royal Sovereign would have to put to sea immediately. The ship would not be much good in a chase, but once it reached the convoy, it would at least give him a credible defense. But could the old battleship get there in time? He also found a pair of destroyers in the Cape Verde Islands, and another two at Dakar. They were given orders to move out at once to lend a hand.

  Damn, he thought. Speed! That’s what I need at sea more than anything. Holland wasn’t happy when I ordered those two cruisers south to the Azores. He was counting on running them alongside Hood. For that matter, Hood is a ship that I could use now, and I might even trade him Duke of York for her.

  He put that thought aside, knowing that prying Holland out of Hood would be no small matter. The man had been with the ship, and the battlecruiser squadron, for many years. No doubt he was very upset when he learned the fate of Renown and Repulse. So Tovey would make do with what he had, and Norfolk and Suffolk were the only heavy cruisers at hand… Unless… Tovey thought about something, realizing that it may be time for an unexpected move here. Yes, it just might fill the bill.

  * * *

  Kapitan Heinrich had taken his little task force out to sea, using speed to get safely away from the battle zone at Fuerteventura. Moving south along the African coast, he turned to starboard and was well out to sea on the 25th of January, and right astride the path of that convoy, now northwest of the Cape Verde Islands.

  He was operating with the benefit of a recent windfall provided by the intelligence arm, for the Germans had broken the British Naval Cypher 3 in December of 1941, and now had the benefit of reading their signals intercepts. His B-Dienst radio intercept unit had learned of the orders sent to re-route Convoy WS-15, and now he was sitting in a very good position to make contact.

  “Any word from the Goeben?” said Kapitan Heinrich to his Executive Officer, Korvettenkapitan Dieter Jung, a young, eager man who had come aboard during their refit in Gibraltar. He had come over from one of the older cruisers, excited to be aboard a ship like Kaiser Wilhelm now, and particularly out on a mission like this. The battle off Fuerteventura had been a thrilling baptism of fire for him, though he had been below in the alternate control room during most of that action. A tall
, well built man, his dark hair spoke of his youth, and he always seemed ready to break into a run, often rocking back and forth, shifting his weight from heel to toe on the bridge.

  “Nothing yet, sir, but we should hear something soon.”

  “They are sending a pair of cruisers, Jung,” said the Kapitan. “I would think they might have learned a lesson the last time we faced off against such ships.”

  When acting as the vanguard and scout for Lütjens’ Schweregruppe, Kaiser Wilhelm had engaged the British cruisers Sheffield and Gloucester, badly damaging the latter and then putting that ship under the sea with torpedoes.

  “Those were light cruisers,” said Jung, for he had moved through the ranks below decks and heard all the stories from the men about that battle. “B-Dienst signal intercepts indicate they are sending Norfolk and Suffolk, a pair of heavy cruisers.”

  “Yes,” said Heinrich, “and a nice fat battleship coming up behind us from Freetown. “Looks like Schirmer will have plenty of work. All we found off those islands were British destroyers.”

  The Kapitan was racking up quite a record for himself. In his first deployment he had taken part in the feasting frenzy when the Schweregruppe broke out near the Faeroes. There they had savaged Convoy HX-69, and he sunk the destroyer Winchelsea, a tanker and two other merchantmen. In their second deployment, they stalked the carrier Glorious, dueling with destroyers desperately trying to keep him at bay. There he had his second warship kill when Schirmer scored that amazing hit at very long range, and nearly broke the destroyer Impulsive in two. The cruiser Gloucester was next, before those troublesome planes off the British carrier got a lucky hit of their own and forced him to retire to Gibraltar for repairs. Then, in the action off Fuerteventura, he had put the destroyer Loyal out of action, and sunk the Zulu for good measure. No other German surface raider could claim so many warship kills, though the commerce raider Atlantis still held the record for tonnage sunk in merchant shipping.

  Kaiser Wilhelm had also taken a hit from one of those damnable British naval rockets during that action. A single GB-7 missile fired by the Argos Fire struck just forward of the main conning tower on the port side of the ship. It took out a 150mm secondary battery there, and a twin 20mm AA gun, but did little other damage. He still had ten more of those 5.9-inch guns on five twin gun turrets, and there was nothing wrong with his main 15-inch guns.

  That incident had also had the odd side effect of bucking up the fighting spirit of the ship. The navy had heard the whispered rumors of these deadly rocket weapons, and then saw what they could do to Gneisenau, Scharnhorst, and even the bigger battleships. The fate of Graf Zeppelin was still talked about in hushed conversations below decks, but this time, they had faced the missiles and come off relatively unscathed. It had made Heinrich just a little more confident, and when he received that signal to begin Operation Rösselsprung, he was elated. Now he would not be operating like a dog on a leash. Now he had the open sea, and good hunting ahead. Every man aboard could feel it, the sense of excitement, and the eagerness for battle. Heinrich was going to see that they would have plenty more to talk about soon.

  Later that day, Kapitan Falkenrath on the Goeben signaled that one of his Messerschmitts out on forward patrol had finally sighted the British convoy. Heinrich rubbed his hands together with the news.

  “Increase to 30 knots,” he said. “Signal Goeben to take position astern and prepare to launch her falcons.”

  The deadly combination of both air and sea power would now make this raiding group more dangerous than any other the British had faced to date in the war. At 18:00 hours the Convoy Master was notified by his lead escort ship, RMS Ascania, that a sighting had been made due south. Her Captain, Alastair Gordon Davidson, had a keen eye at sea, and considering the estimated range of the sighting, he thought it unusual that he would see anything at all—unless it was a ship with a considerable height to its superstructure and conning tower. That thought gave him no comfort, but he nonetheless notified the convoy that he was advancing to investigate the sighting, and sounded general quarters as the ship increased to its maximum speed of 15 knots.

  Ascania was not a warship by birth, but rather a converted Cunard liner, the sixth of the A-Class, displacing a little over 14,000 tons. Now an Armed Merchant Cruiser, she had eight 6-inch guns with four to either side on her main deck, and another two 76mm 3-inch guns, one each on the bow and stern. She had once provided cabin accommodations for 500 passengers, and another 1200 in 3rd class, but now it was mostly her crew of 270 men aboard, and all beat to quarters.

  The sound of the ship’s bell hung on the still evening airs as Ascania slowly edged away from the wide forward line of troopships, arrayed in a long row. Pardo stood off on the starboard side, and they were all lined up at intervals of about 100 yards, Autolycus, Staffordshire, Strathmore, where the Commodore held forth, then Empire Woodlark and Port Chalmers. HMS Resolution should have been there on that line, but as WS-15 was heading into waters where Tovey once had five battleships and two battlecruisers, that ship had been assigned to other duty.

  Unfortunately, the ferocious battle off Fuerteventura had seen all those heavy ships well engaged, and it was now RMS Ascania on that front row, a brave sheepdog, but a vessel that might stand as a deterrent to little more than a U-Boat if encountered on the surface. On that first line alone, there were 7718 troops, and behind it were three more lines of ships, in silent rows, their evening quiet soon to be broken by the distant boom of large caliber naval guns.

  Kaiser Wilhelm opened the attack at 16,000 yards, with Schirmer finding the range quickly. It would be the third occasion in the war where a brave Armored Merchant Cruiser would confront a dangerous foe. The Rawalpindi had faced off against the Twins, Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, and was sunk on the 23rd of November in 1939. Then Jervis Bay had fought a duel with the Admiral Scheer, her Captain going down with his ship as he defended Convoy HX-84.

  Ascania would fare little better, and Captain Davidson knew as much when he saw those first shells fall off his port side. “Better signal the Commodore,” he said darkly. “Tell him we’ll hold on as long as we can, but it would be best if the convoy was somewhere else.”

  That was a gentle suggestion that WS-15 scatter to try and save as many ships as possible, and that would be the order minutes later, in spite of the difficulties it would cause. Every other escort with the convoy would try and hold the line, and now the old Type B Destroyer Boreas, even more lightly armed than Ascania, also charged bravely to the scene. It would bring another four 4.7-inch guns to the battle, but Kaiser Wilhelm’s secondary gun battery still outnumbered both ships combined. That would be the least of their worries. Schirmer was at his work again, and it was those 15-inch guns that would rule the day. Ascania was hit below the water line, with no belt armor at all to stop that heavy shell, and soon there were fires below decks, and flooding.

  Captain Davidson was taking stock of the damage report when the lookouts called out another warning—enemy planes above. It was Hans Rudel, up to get his pound of flesh that day, and it would be hard to miss anything he came swooping down on, the wail of the Jericho trumpets screaming out as he dove to attack. He put his bomb right through the centerline of Autolycus, and there was a tremendous explosion. That ship had been carrying mostly artillery stores, motor transport and five armored cars. It would all be a total loss in under ten minutes, only the first of the bison to fall.

  The wolves were on the prowl.

  Chapter 8

  Meanwhile the situation at the Grand Canary Island was also precarious. Preparations for the onset of Phase II of the battle had taken much longer than expected. It was, of course, mainly a problem of logistics. The Germans had taken Malta by storm, though that was largely an airborne operation. They had not yet invaded Crete, and so that experience was not behind them. Some lessons were learned in the occupation of Cyprus, Rhodes and the transfer of troops by sea to Syria, but those island moves relied on the Italian Navy for cover
and transport. Here, in Operation Condor, Raeder was relying mostly on the French.

  The battle fought off Fuerteventura had been a severe shock to both sides, with damage and loss of capital ships that would profoundly affect the balance of sea power in the coming months. With Hindenburg needing at least a month in repairs, and Bismarck at least six months, Raeder was effectively out of business in the Atlantic. His only active battlegroup was the raiding force composed of Kaiser Wilhelm and Goeben. The French still had good operational capability, and so he would have to rely on them now, something that galled him, as he would not have direct control.

  Seeing war for what it really was now, with Richelieu lost, Normandie damaged enough to need 30 days in repairs, the French were just a little more cautious in sending out their battleships. Raeder was able to persuade them to at least provide a covering force, and as they had already agreed to contribute so many transports, including the newly arrived troop liner Bretagne, they had little choice.

  It had taken another day to fully secure Fuerteventura, and then a day to reorganize and airlift supplies to the islands. Three Siebel ferries were finally escorted down the coast to Tarfaya, though their presence was going to require a constant naval watch. Raeder was anxious to proceed, thinking the British would have time to intervene again if they did not move quickly, but Goring had been stung by the losses in aircraft, with over 50 Stukas destroyed, and a good number of Ju-88s and his older Do-17s. Repairs to the cratered airfields also took time, but when an entire battalion of the 22nd Luftland Division pitched in with their field shovels, they got the job done in 24 hours. So it was over three days before Phase II of Condor could be contemplated.

  Admiral Laborde agreed to use the Toulon Group for cover, which was still at sea, and ordered Admiral Gensoul to form two task force groups. One was centered on the Battleship Jean Bart, with five fast destroyers, and two more lighter DD escorts. The second was built around battlecruiser Dunkerque, with the cruiser Algerie and four more destroyers. The French had learned the hard way that no matter how good their ships were, their cruisers were still outmaneuvered by the Royal Navy cruiser Captains. They therefore reasoned that the larger capital ships could hold their own against the British cruisers, and fast destroyer escorts would provide the screening, scouting and close support.